Supersizing the Mind

Embodiment, Action, and Cognitive Extension

Andy Clark

Drawing upon recent work in psychology, linguistics, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, robotics, human-computer systems, and beyond, Supersizing the Mind offers both a tour of the emerging cognitive landscape and a sustained argument in favor of a conception of mind that is extended rather than "brain-bound." The importance of this new perspective is profound. If our minds themselves can include aspects of our social and physical environments, then the kinds of social and physical environments we create can reconfigure our minds and our capacity for thought and reason.

Supersizing the Mind

Embodiment, Action, and Cognitive Extension

Andy Clark

Description

When historian Charles Weiner found pages of Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman's notes, he saw it as a "record" of Feynman's work. Feynman himself, however, insisted that the notes were not a record but the work itself. In Supersizing the Mind, Andy Clark argues that our thinking doesn't happen only in our heads but that "certain forms of human cognizing include inextricable tangles of feedback, feed-forward and feed-around loops: loops that promiscuously criss-cross the boundaries of brain, body and world." The pen and paper of Feynman's thought are just such feedback loops, physical machinery that shape the flow of thought and enlarge the boundaries of mind. Drawing upon recent work in psychology, linguistics, neuroscience, artificial intelligence,
robotics, human-computer systems, and beyond, Supersizing the Mind offers both a tour of the emerging cognitive landscape and a sustained argument in favor of a conception of mind that is extended rather than "brain-bound." The importance of this new perspective is profound. If our minds themselves can include aspects of our social and physical environments, then the kinds of social and physical environments we create can reconfigure our minds and our capacity for thought and reason.

Supersizing the Mind

Embodiment, Action, and Cognitive Extension

Andy Clark

Author Information

Andy Clark is Professor of Philosophy in the School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences, at Edinburgh University in Scotland. He is the author of several books including Being There: Putting Brain, Body and World Together Again (1997) and Natural-Born Cyborgs: Minds, Technologies and The Future Of Human Intelligence (OUP, 2003).

Supersizing the Mind

Embodiment, Action, and Cognitive Extension

Andy Clark

Reviews and Awards

"In Supersizing the Mind, Clark furthers the debate marvelously. He manages to engage, in a detailed and focused way, with the most active and prominent philosophers writing about situated cognition, while also introducing the empirical work and big picture ideas that animate the subject. I highly recommend this book." --Journal of Mind and Behavior

"Supersizing the Mind is an important book for cognitive-science theorists of all stripes.... Although traditional and radical theorists are likely to remain unconvinced, there can be no doubt that Supersizing the Mind will set the terms for many of the coming debates."--Evan Thompson, Times Literary Supplement

"...it offers original thinking in the philosophy of mind, and it is highly recommended for academic collections in that subject."--Library Journal

"In Supersizing the Mind, philosopher Andy Clark makes the compelling argument that the mind extends beyond the body to include the tools, symbols and other artefacts we deploy to engage the world.... Supersizing the Mind is a treat to read. It is brimming with remarkable ideas, novel insights and amusing language."--Nature

"Supersizing the Mind is tantalizing in many respects, and Clark's ingenuity is always on display. Just as his earlier Being There launched many a research project, we expect that Supersizing the Mind will inspire a new generation of philosophers, psychologists, and artificial intelligence researchers to reconsider some basic assumptions about the mind."--Lawrence Shapiro and Shannon Spaulding, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

"This is an important book; it provides compelling and empirically well-supported argument; it offers a survey of the state-of-play in contemporary cognitive science; it directs our attention to the most pressing foundational issue in the study of mind, that of how to reconcile the information-processing perspective with the growing recognition that action and the body, not to mention technology, have a crucial role in our mental lives."--Trends in Cognitive Sciences